Voices Carry
by WolfBane2
Summary: (takes place the night after A Second Spell) How did Zatch react to the first time he killed one of his own kind? A closer look at the night after the battle in which Zatch's idealistic views of reality were altered forever.


Disclaimer: WolfBane2 does not own anyone or anything in Zatch Bell. But she wishes that she owned Eido. Because he's hot. Snobby and hot!

_The night after A Second Spell:_

As the grandfather clock on the floor beneath his room tolled once to announce the arrival of 1 A.M., Kiyo rolled over on his futon, upsetting the pale sheet that had previously been covering him. But it mattered little; the thin cloth was already bunched at the foot of the futon, dangerously close to falling off. His eyelids were forced down over his eyes, twitching slightly. But the 14-year-old teenager was not asleep. He had tried for hours to tempt sleep into his mind, trying everything from paging through the most boring book he owned to staring at the crack in the ceiling, where his younger cousin had once bounced a Bouncy ball too high and left a tiny indentation in the plaster. But no matter how hard Kiyo tried, sleep would not come. Instead, shadows of what had gone on during the previous day reverberated through his mind, refusing to grant him peace.

"_I can't put it out! It won't go out!"_ Again and again, Rekom's despairing cry interrupted his thoughts, echoed by the ice Mamodo's faint sobs as both he and the spell book that was his life force faded into nothingness.

Kiyo sighed, and rolled onto his stomach. His amber eyes, now open, pierced the surface of the wall behind his futon. The teenager noticed that moonlight shone through the window beside his bed, bathing his skin and the futon in an eerie silver shade. He thought ironically that people who slept in moonlight supposedly turned into lunatics. Kiyo certainly felt as if he were going mad, as he unwillingly recalled Rekom's yelp of terror when the blue-haired Mamodo realized that his source of power was burning into blue ashes. Kiyo remembered the animal-like desperation with which the kid had pounded with pale fists at the icy sapphire flames as they licked along the sides of the spell book. The low, inhuman sobs as he'd left the world as humans knew it, how hopeless they had sounded.

The brown-haired teenager nearly leapt out of the bed when he discovered that these sobs were not only in his memories. It took him a few seconds to realize that these sobs were higher-pitched, obviously Zatch's, and that he had not been transported back to that horrible moment of shocked silence after Rekom had burnt to ashes along with his book.

Zatch. _Poor kid,_ Kiyo thought wistfully as he remembered how his annoying friend had reacted to realizing he had killed one of his own kind. The blond Mamodo had been uncharacteristically silent as the two boys had walked home, staring at the sidewalk and not even commenting on the park surroundings which usually so fascinated him. After they'd reached the house, he had eaten his dinner without speaking and soon afterward vanished into the guestroom that Kiyo's mother had converted to be Zatch's. Worried about the young Mamodo, his mother had fretted for a few minutes, before finally accepting Kiyo's statement that something rough had happened, Zatch would be okay with a little time.

The brunette sat up and brushed his bangs out of his eyes. He threw his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, wincing at the chill of the wooden floor on the pads of his bare feet. Kiyo stretched his arms over his head, trying to work out the numbness of the arm he had been sleeping on, and said to himself ruefully, _Better go see what's wrong. Otherwise he'll wake up Mom and then she won't let either of us out of her sight for a week. Besides, there's no way I'm getting to sleep anytime soon._

Kiyo listened carefully, and judged the soft sounds to be coming from above him. There was a small set of stairs in the back of the upstairs hallway, which led to the roof. Kiyo hadn't known that Zatch had discovered them, but now that he thought about it, he remembered that Zatch had made a thorough exploration of the house on his first night as a resident. Sure enough, as the teenager went into the hall and approached the rickety set of stairs, the sounds grew more audible. Slowly, Kiyo eased his way up them, moving sideways on the edges of the steps to avoid making the floorboards squeak. Not a very comfortable way of climbing, but better than waking up his mother and having her demand an explanation as to why her son was going up the roof at 1 in the morning.

The 14-year-old emerged on the edge of his home's roof. The stairs led to the bottom of where the roof began to slant. The shingles were slippery as you went further upward, but the edge of the roof was wide enough to walk around. Beneath the edge were drainpipes, dripping with rain that had drenched the building two nights ago. A golden three-quarter moon shone above him, though the city lights obliterated his view of the stars so that he could only see a few of the brightest ones, scattered in the velvety midnight-blue skies above him. Kiyo looked around for Zatch. Sure enough, the lightning Mamodo sat on the corner of the roof's edge across from him, his knees pulled to his chest. His small, pudgy hands hugged his legs close to him, and his face was buried in the cloth of his strange indigo garment. The strange child's shoulders heaved, and the same muffled crying reached Kiyo's ears as the brunette approached Zatch, keeping one hand on the slanting roof shingles beside him as he cautiously edged along the roof's base.

Zatch didn't look up as his teenage friend sat down beside him, cross-legged as to not risk falling two stories to the ground. There was silence for a few minutes as Kiyo pondered on how to comfort the small boy. Nothing brilliant came to mind, but he tried anyway. "You okay?" he asked hesitatingly, knowing it was a stupid question as soon as it came out of his mouth. Of course Zatch wasn't okay; he was crying in the middle of the night on a rooftop.

But the blond Mamodo didn't comment on the intelligence level of Kiyo's query. He still didn't raise his head to look at the brunette, but a wavering voice choked out, "We…we killed him, Kiyo. We killed Rekom."

Kiyo's own head lowered a bit, but he responded gruffly, "We didn't have a choice, Zatch."

"There's always a choice. You're a genius, Kiyo, you know that." Zatch suddenly jerked his head up and stared straight into Kiyo's eyes. The Mamodo's vermilion eyes were red-rimmed, and the skin beneath them was pink and puffy. The sides of his face were shining with tear tracks, and more tears pooled in the bottom of his enormous eyes. He gasped raggedly for breath in the manner of someone who was trying to speak coherently while breaking down.

Kiyo's own breath hitched in his throat. Unable to take the gaze of the young Mamodo any longer, he stared ashamedly at his own feet instead. "I…I guess there is, usually," the 14-year-old admitted. "But Zatch, what else could we have done? I couldn't let them take you and the book."

A low whine was the only response he got out of the small boy. Again, Zatch dropped his head into his knees, hiding his face. The blond Mamodo still hugged his knees to his chest fiercely, as if trying to shield himself from something. Clasped between his knees and his chest was the Voltron 3000 that Kiyo had given him early that morning. Zatch grasped it as if he was a 5-year-old who had just woken up from a nightmare and was hugging his favorite stuffed animal for comfort, and to keep away the bad dreams. _I'll bet Mom gets him a stuffed animal for Christmas. Maybe a dog…_Kiyo mused absently as he watched the lightning-wielding Mamodo.

"But we killed him," Zatch repeated softly. "And we're going to have to do it again, aren't we." When words failed Kiyo and he did not respond, the blond boy looked up again. "Aren't we, Kiyo." His orange eyes, still brimming with unshed tears but now fierce beneath the sadness, burned into Kiyo's amber ones. He wasn't going to let Kiyo escape this question. "To continue keeping people safe, you and me are going to have to kill the others that are like me, aren't we." His voice trilled up another level, shrill and demanding. "Answer me, Kiyo!"

Kiyo's voice was low and defeated, as he looked up at the glowing moon and finally responded, "Yes, Zatch. We're going to have to kill them."

Another sob escaped from Zatch's lips. Two more tears slipped from the corners of his eyes as the young Mamodo pleaded, "It's not fair. I don't want to hurt anybody. I want to help people. How can I do that when I have to kill all these other people?"

"No," Kiyo replied bitterly. "It's not fair. I know that it's not fair. Nothing is."

"Operation Heroes of Justice…" Zatch murmured, gazing at the backyard in front of them as more tears slid down his cheeks. His breathing was still erratic, his voice still shaking. He didn't say anything more, but Kiyo understood. And there was nothing the brunette could do to comfort the idealistic boy. The realities of the human world had hit him hard, and nothing Kiyo said could take them away.

Zatch spoke up suddenly, unexpectedly. "It must have hurt. It must have hurt an awful lot." he said sadly, wiping the last of the tears from his eyes with a fist, sniffing. Kiyo looked at him questioningly. "Rekom," the lightning Mamodo explained. "When the book burned up…he must have felt like his heart was being burned up, just like the book. He must have felt the flames, and I can't even imagine the pain…it must have been like having your heart ripped into pieces from all directions…"

Kiyo didn't respond with sound. His knuckles turned white as his fingers dug into his kneecaps in almost a death-grip. A solitary tear slid down the left side of his face, though he tried valiantly to keep from crying. The tear was for Rekom, and for all the others like Rekom whose hearts had burned to ashes in the past Mamodo battles, and for all the other Mamodos that Zatch and he would have to kill in the future who would experience that same pain. The tear was for all those who suffered because of great injustices in the world, from primitive but effective human injustices to the sheer, unmovable unfairness of life itself.

"Kiyo?" Zatch continued. His tone was almost pleading as he gazed trustingly up at the person who he was supposed to guide through life. "You'll keep me and my book safe, right? You won't let my heart burn up like Rekom's did?" His enormous eyes were so beseeching that Kiyo's own heart was nearly ripped out of his chest.

Kiyo wanted to be able to answer. He wanted desperately to be able to say he and Zatch would never be defeated, that their bond would keep them from harm, that everything would be all right.

But he couldn't say that. He couldn't lie.

Author's Note: When I saw the end of A Second Spell, I nearly cried for Rekom myself. My first thought was, "And the worst part is that this isn't the first time this has happened to someone like that, and it won't be the last." So I got on my computer and started typing, and two and a half hours later I got this. Yeah…that's basically it. Please review.


End file.
